>> Anyone heard of using studio monitors instead? Like those from creative (about $139) a pair.
Useful for desktop multimedia or for those using a laptop and need fairly portable speakers. But as studio monitors for serious recording? Get real. Suggest you lower the budget for the synth and get proper speakers. (~$1k)
Can consider giving up the weighted version and go for
Motif 6 (~$3k)
Triton LE 61 keys (<$2k)
OR even the older Roland XP series
Personally, nowadays all ROMPlers sound quite alike to me. And there's actually little to choose between them in terms of sounds.
So if you want really realistic piano, drums, strings etc get a second computer with a fast hard disk and use Gigasampler instead. The power users in this forum will tell you much better it sounds compared to a typical ROMpler for realistic instrument emulations (though it probably loses out in terms of the "flashy" ala Roland D-50 layered type of sounds).
